My journey with my hair has been interesting one filled with love, hate, thankfully no blood, but plenty of tears. As a child, I had a lot of hair that not even my mother knew how to handle. She went out of her way to tell me that my black hair is beautiful. However, it was kind of hard for me buy it. I’m gonna use a little backstory to explain.
I was born and raised in Tanzania where the bantu population in my country was a mixture of tribes from all Africa that had migrated to that little corner of East Africa ages ago. Along the coast, there were folks who were black and mixed with Arab and Indian blood. Up North, the cooler climates were mingling with European settlers brought about fairer people. The rest of the tribes were a mix of people whose ancestries hailed from Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia and many others. We’re all Tanzanian but nobody’s passport will really tell you enough about their rich culture and history.
My mother is a woman of Rwandan, Burundian and even British descent, but for all intents and purposes she’s a black woman born and raised in Tanzania. I idolized her growing up. I worshipped the ground she walked on. Even through my rebellious teen years, she was still my hero and role model. I always wanted to live up everything that she is—including her beauty. My mother’s hair was, to me, the 8th wonder of the world. Before she cut it because of work, her locs went all the way down to the bottom of her back. It naturally had more volume than her. (No one tell her I said that last part.) Women from her tribe were known for this kind of beauty so it didn’t come as much of a surprise.
And then there was my hair. It was long by “afro standards” but it would never be like hers. I despised my knots and tangles. I despised how my hair behaved when it touched water. I hated the hairstyles I was limited to. In the 6th grade, I was tired of not being able to flip my hair like my friends. I secretly wanted the attention that they got. I ignored the fact that I already had more hair in my fro than a lot of my straight haired cousins. I wanted to be able to run my hands through it, feel the wind in it and not break combs with it. My mom finally let me get a perm when I was 13, and I wish she hadn’t. A few years later, after lots of damage, it had to go. I spent the next couple of years under protective styles such as braids and weaves.
It seems like I had made progress, but the problem with my lack of self-love. I wasn’t just using my braids to grow and protect hair, I was using them to hide my hair. I still wasn’t proud of my kinky crown. It wasn’t until natural hair became a popular “trend” that I started looking into it. I watched YouTube videos, followed all the relevant social media accounts and even read a blog or two. It was when I decided to embrace the nappy life that I learned about all it had to offer.
As much as I wanted an excuse to talk about my own hair journey in this article, I also want to write about something that would make people go, “Girl, same!” A lot of people only see the glorious crowns that are results of a twist out. Little do they know what we go through just to achieve our nappy glory. Here’s a few examples of what the struggle looks like:
1. “Hmmm, I don’t know about that”
Without a doubt, when you first go natural, everyone has something to say about it. You first look at your new “project” with skepticism because you don’t know your hair goals. Some of your family may think it’s a phase. The worst ratings you might get may be from people who don’t even know you but luckily their opinions are just that—opinions.
2. Doing the Twist
If I was talking about the dance, we’d probably have it down because black folk have natural rhythm. On the contrary, I’m referring to one of the most popular hairstyles for naturals. On a good day, your hair behaves and you end up with beautiful defined curls but things don’t always go as planned.
3. Rain Drop, Shrink Top
If there’s anything in this world that seeks to literally rain on a black girl’s hair parade, it’s shrinkage. All that combing, all that detangling, all that stretching and all that volume literally washed away by a few droplets.
4. In the Red
If you’re anything like me, at some point you fell into that trap where you assumed that any natural hair YouTuber who has at least 100,000 subscribers is worth trusting. WRONG. What I found is that they’re often trying to get you to buy a bunch of “must-have” products which they would never use on their own head. Before long, you’ll find yourself with a bunch of products that were never meant for you but are eating up your bank account.
5. Let’s get physical
By far, the daily struggle of every nappy headed girl is avoiding eager hands in public. Some black girls keep a short list of people who get to touch their hair. The list does not include strangers who feel entitled to touch a part of someone else without permission. I could write a whole think piece on this subject alone, but talking about why you shouldn’t touch a black girl’s hair is a battle for another day.
Regardless of the daily struggle, I’ve come to terms with my hair for what it is. I wish it hadn’t taken 18+ years, articles written by radical black feminists, and thousands of hours on YouTube to get me to where I am today. Nappy is no longer an insult. It’s a title I carry with pride. The truth is that no matter the curl pattern or the number of tangles you have to work through to braid/twist your hair, black hair always was and always will be truly magical. Here’s to making sure that 2017 is the year we reclaim the word ‘nappy’ and remind the world that it’s synonymous with beauty.
